"This unique and empowering method gave me the tools and knowledge to help me find my way. And above that, I can help others to find theirs."

Meet MBS Trainer Chris van der Hoff and learn about his journey to seek a way to help others through movements, emotional support and connections with the mind. Upon finding Mind Body Studies, Chris thrives to continue studying with MBS Academy, practicing this work and teaching as an MBS Trainer in the current Foundation Training.

Learn how Irmgard Bergmann, one of MBS Academy's Trainers, came to study Mind Body Studies, how she has incorporated this work into her profession as a midwife in Germany, and her experience in learning and teaching MBS.

What first drew you to Mind Body Studies?

I had a horse who was very nervous, so I took a seminar with Linda Telington-Jones. In the seminar, we also felt how the Feldenkrais Method works, doing a lesson with "the four points". I remember standing on my hands and knees and lying down and standing back up, and thinking that it was boring. (Of course, now I understand why we were doing what we did!) But, I tried a class once more. This time, it was very interesting for me. I remember that someone said, “After this half hour, I can move without a pain that I had had for fifteen years.” That impressed me.

Margit Hrasdil is an MBS Trainer and Practitioner based in Bolzano, Italy, where she teaches locally as well as in MBS Academy’s international Trainings. Prior to her training in the Feldenkrais Method (1995) and her advanced study with MBS Academy, Margit worked for many years as a physical education teacher and as a track and field coach in elementary and secondary schools. Here, Margit speaks with Danielle Hill about her background in athletics and education, and her continuing experiences with Mind Body Studies.

MBS Trainer Chieko Omiya teaches ballet and offers MBS lessons to dancers in Sendai, Japan. She was first introduced to Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® classes in 1985 and graduated from the Japan Feldenkrais® Training in 2000, learning from Mia Segal as well as Eilat Almagor. From 2011 to 2014, she served as an Assistant Trainer throughout the MBS Foundation Training in Bad Toelz. As that training ends and the next one begins, Chieko reflects on how she found her way to the Feldenkrais Method® and how Mind Body Studes and the method applies to her work with dancers.

The Search for A Missing Piece

Chieko began teaching ballet in 1978, having trained in the 1970s under a graduate of the Beijing Dance Academy. As Chieko describes it, it impressed her from the start how “wonderfully logical” ballet was. Although her teacher would instruct the class with only a limited grasp of the Japanese language, Chieko recalls, it was possible to understand just what she wanted of her pupils. At the time, there were no other instructors offering ballet instruction with such a grasp of the theory and such a pure adherence to the ‘ballet education system’. “I was so fascinated to teach my own ballet pupils by that logic,” she explains.

MBS Trainer Jochen Jadkowski graduated from Mia Segal’s Zurich 3 Foundation Training in 1993. He has a private practice in Berlin, Germany at Praxis Ayuda, a center where he offers Feldenkrais lessons and his wife (and MBS graduate) Margarethe Jadkowski offers Ayurveda treatments. Jochen worked as a special needs teacher (remedial work with children) from 1991 to 2004 and worked with “Lerina-Therapie” (therapy for children after craniocerebral injuries) from 1985 to 1995. He is also trained in body-centered psychological therapy.

During the final segment of the Bad Toelz Foundation training in February 2014, Jochen shared some of his experiences from the training, as well as his own history with MBS and Feldenkrais. We tucked into a quiet corner booth at Bad Toelz’s renowned ‘Café Schuler’ and Jochen recalled his early days and continuing learning over some Bavarian Kaffee and Kuchen.

What first lead you to Feldenkrais and MBS?

I was born without a left forearm. So, beginning when I was perhaps eight or ten, a woman called Ms. Haenchen worked with myself and other children. We would paint and do pantomimes, play music, tell fairy tales, and do many other activities.

MBS Assistant Trainer Soeun Grace Hong Doh completed her Feldenkrais Training in 2002 and became an MBS Master Practitioner in 2011. She runs a private practice in Seoul, Korea and is organizing and teaching MBS Korea’s first Professional Foundation Training. Her background is in Exercise Physiology, Neuroscience, Biotechnology and patent law.

Here, Grace shares some of the experiences that have shaped her involvement with Feldenkrais® and eventually MBS, as a student, a practitioner, and an MBS Trainer.

“That was the first time I realized that an FI® and ATM® are really a time to be with the experience, and not to be spoiled with analysis or words. Not just the physical, but the mind aspect as well. I had to continue with the training, because continuing was the only thing that made sense going forward, as a way of becoming more mature, healthier, and more mobile in my life. I learned to pose questions to myself, explore new possibilities, ignite my curiosity and invite subtle changes and transformation.”

Between November 2013 and March 2014, three MBS Trainers are leading a series of Introduction to MBS workshops in Munich, Germany. Here, the three trainers, Ingo Herbst, Elke Bruce-Boye, and Angelika Kitt, speak about their own experiences with Feldenkrais and Mind Body Studies and reflect on why and how they’ve put together this workshop series.

MBS Trainers Angelika, Ingo and Elke

What originally drew you to learning about Feldenkrais and MBS?

[ANGELIKA] I started to learn this work in 1983. I was fascinated when I heard about Feldenkrais through several different people. One of them was an actor and a friend of mine. He had a teacher who taught Feldenkrais to actors, and my friend was really excited about it, so I became curious. Then, another person mentioned it to me, saying, “We do movements in thinking, and we clarify the movement through thinking.” I found this interesting, because at this time I did Karate-do and in each kata (or form), you see how your opponent starts the movement and you think his movement, and then you do your movement in this same way.

I also had a colleague, a psychologist, and after we had team meetings in the evenings, he always had to rush off so quickly. One day I said, “Wow, you are busy!” He explained, “Oh, I have to go to my Feldenkrais class.” So, I was interested. I tried it out, and one day while I was lying on the floor during a class, suddenly, the feeling came over me that this was my work. I did my training first with Gaby Yaron and then with other teachers.

MBS Trainer, Patty Underwood, will soon be bringing the MBS program to South Africa, where she will teach two introductory public workshops in September 2013. From her home in Fairfax, California, Patty answered questions on the upcoming workshops in South Africa and the influences Mia and Leora have had on her, both professionally and personally.

MBS: During a recent Foundation Training in Bad Toelz, Mia recounted her wonderful story about speaking with Moshe after she’d first watched him work. He asked if she had any questions; she assured him that she had many. Mia can still hear his response today: “If you know the right question… it will only take a minute!"

During the course of your own training, what are the really decisive moments or particular touchstones that you regularly recall?

Patty: I still vividly remember the first FI that Mia gave me. I was attending a training that she gave in Berkeley, and I really don’t know what got into me, but somehow I got the idea that I wanted to feel “the Master’s hands”! I’m not normally the type of person who just goes up and asks to feel somebody’s hands. But, as it turned out, I was very fortunate, as at the end of the training, Mia demonstrated FI for the group – on me. I still remember it so clearly. It was completely different from anything I had ever experienced before – and I had already done a good deal of training by this time! Mia had such absolute clarity and curiosity in how she asked my body questions, or rather, how she asked me questions, using her hands. It was such a clear and direct conversation of discovery, which I could feel going all the way through my body.